The present invention relates to an apparatus for inspecting the state of signal recording of a videotape on which are recorded image and sound signals.
Conventionally, the signal recording state of a videotape on which image and sound signals are recorded has been inspected by the eye and ear with the recorded image and sound signals reproduced as visible images and audible sounds on a television set through a videotape playback system. In this method, if any defect is found in the reproduced images or sounds, a person in charge of inspection manually stops the running of the videotape and rejects the tape as a defective videotape.
Such a conventional human method of vidiotape inspection disadvantageously ties a person in charge of inspection down to a nerves exhausting job either until any defect is found in the image and/or sounds being observed or until the videotape under inspection comes to the end without any defect discovered. A further disadvantage of the conventional method is that the criterion of judging a defect to be acceptable or unacceptable can not help being somewhat arbitrary because the judgement is entrusted to a person in charge of inspection. In addition, so long as the inspection is made by a person, it is a decisive disadvantage that an unacceptable defect may occasionally be overlooked.